This 5 Ingredient Parmesan Crusted Romaine and Chicken salad will have you actually enjoying eating lettuce, and I’m going to talk about eating better with the health key™ System and my personal eating goals for the New Year, and is part of a shop that has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. As always, all opinions are mine alone. #MyPicknSave #CollectiveBias

I always like to set goals for myself at the beginning of the year. Something about doing so really helps keep me on track throughout the year. And while I already spoke to you about my highlights and failures of 2014, I didn’t really talk to you too much about eating habits and goals I’ve set.

The thing is, I’ve never been a skinny mini, and it’s not a secret that I enjoy food (clearly, hello, I have a food blog). I also know that everyone, no matter what size or shape has their own food related struggles. But towards the end of 2014 I started thinking about how this year (2015) I am going to set more food related goals and what that would look like. I’m always trying to improve, and thought it was high time I start focusing on health as a goal.

For me that doesn’t mean going on a crazy diet (trust me, I’ve tried ever diet out there and something juristic just doesn’t do it for me), it means a lifestyle change, it means making better decisions and portion control (so don’t worry, you’ll still see some decadent recipes on the blog, but hopefully behind the scenes I’ll be eating one cookie instead of three!)

So with my new goals in place, I headed to #MyPicknSave to do some grocery shopping and was so excited to learn that they have a new label system in place called health key™.

“Better food choices lead to a healthier life. And helping you live better is precisely why we’ve developed health key™. Using the guiding principles of science, trust and ease, health key was designed to help you identify foods with healthy attributes. The color-coded icons point out 18 important ingredient and nutrient attributes – ranging from Organic and Gluten Free to No Lactose, No Added Sugars and Vitamin C. To gain a health key tag, products must pass through filters specifically put in place to omit items with excessive fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sugar and sodium. “

Don’t you absolutely love it? I like that Pick ‘n Save makes it that much easier to shop. I do have to share that this was my first time getting called out for taking selfies with the food. But I don’t care, I’d say it was 100% worth it! I want my readers to share the same excitement I feel when I find exceptionally awesome ingredients, I want them to know where to purchase items, so bah-humbug to you sir for trying to make me feel stupid while taking a picture with my bag of lettuce.

I also told myself that he was just jealous he wasn’t getting to enjoy this amazing salad!

Making this amazingly delicious Parmesan crusted romaine and chicken salad is actually very easy (and yay, since it only has 5 ingredients it’s perfect for this week’s Five Ingredient Friday). You make the Parmesan crusted chicken in one pan, and then brush the heads of romaine halves in extra virgin olive oil and then sprinkle and press a little Parmesan on them and cook them in another pan. A fun little trick to keep the lettuce crisp is that as soon as you’re done cooking the lettuce you put it on its spine on ice.

Squeeze a lemon slice on the salad with the crispy Parmesan, it creates a nice little zip when you’re eating it.

Start by placing 1 Tbs of the Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a frying pan and turn heat to medium-high. Place the chicken tenders in a bowl and sprinkle ½ Cup Parmesan cheese over the chicken, then one at a time press a little cheese to both sides of the tenders and place in the frying pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook about 5 minutes each side only flipping once so that a nice Parmesan crust forms. When chicken is done turn heat off and leave the chicken in the pan until lettuce is done.

Now prep the lettuce. Slice each head of romaine in half.

Brush the inside of each head of romaine with olive oil, then sprinkle remaining Parmesan between the 4 heads of romaine. Heat a large frying pan and place lettuce cheese side down in the pan. Cook on high for 4-5 minutes, until the cheese melts and starts to brown. While cooking the lettuce put ice cubes in a bag and set on a plate.

Only cook the one side of the romaine with the cheese on it. As soon as it's done, flip it and put it spine side down on the ice bag. Scrape the bits of Parmesan from the pan onto the half of romaine. Squeeze a lemon wedge on each half head of romaine.

To serve place half a head of lettuce on a plate with 2-3 chicken tenders

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I sort of love that you got called out for taking a selfie with lettuce. That is true food blog dedication there! I think trying to eat healthier is always a laudable goal. We all could do with a little more green on our plate, so kudos to you!! This salad looks DELICIOUS!!!

How freaking delicious is this!! And what beautiful photos. I had to take photos In Target once and it was so awkward. Well, you know what, he probably was jealous because I am from looking at this. Yum.

Hahahahahah omg thank you SO MUCH for your comment Amanda! I’m glad I’m not the only one that has had to take photos in a store, and you used the perfect word-awkward! But you know what? It was totally worth it, because I just had a reader email me saying that they loved knowing exactly what type of lettuce I used and that the picture helped them lol! Thanks again for commenting 🙂

[…] never thought I’d be jazzed up about a salad. I mean, I like salads and all, like this parmesan crusted romaine and chicken salad, but of course I cannot have cheese on whole30 (see overview here here and here) and so when I made […]